In order to create awareness among youth, especially college students, about the road safety measures and recent amendments to MV Act, Institute of Public Health, Bengaluru and HKBK Group of Institutions with the support of State Road Safety Authority had organized an awareness program titled “The Road to Safety” under the banner of the “Safer Roads Bengaluru” initiative at HKBK group of institutions on 18th October 2019.
The main intention of organizing this event at HKBK campus is that the selected campus one of the prominent institution at our selected stretch of road and has more than 3000 students studying on that campus.
Poster presentation, skits, role-play by students on road safety, quiz competition, and road safety awareness session by traffic police were organized as part of the event. Former Home Minister and present Member of Legislative Assembly Shri. K. J. George inaugurated the event. The event was presided by Shri. C. M. Faiz Mohammed, Director of HKBK Group of Institutions. Dr. Thriveni B S, public health expert and member of the BBMP NCD task force, Shri. Manzoor A. Khan, Secretary, HKBK Group of Institutions were the other guests for the event.
Winners of the competitions were rewarded ISI standard 2-wheeler helmets from the Safer Roads Bengaluru initiative. Around 600 students participated in the event.
Olivia Biermann, PhD candidate at Karolinska Institutet, Stokholm will be hosting a seminar titled “Policy dialogues for evidence-informed policy-making.”
A brief description of the seminar is given below:
Substantial investment is made in health research. Nevertheless, there remains a significant gap between what is scientifically known and what is being used in policy. To facilitate evidence-informed policy-making the interaction with and among stakeholders is key. Examples of such interaction include policy dialogues which convene key stakeholders to deliberate on priority health topics. Policy dialogues support the integration of research evidence with tacit knowledge of local health policy-makers, and thus contribute to bridging the research-to-policy gap.
Intended learning outputs/outcomes of the seminar:
Understanding of evidence-informed health policy-making;
Insights into the WHO’s Evidence-informed Policy Network and its activities;
Understanding of policy dialogues and their preparatory steps; and
Familiarization with message-tailoring for a specific target group (hands-on exercise).
You are invited to join the seminar in person or join the live seminar via Zoom, using the link provided at the top of the page.
Dr Vijayashree Yellappa, doctoral candidate at Maastrich University and honorary associate at IPH, will be presenting her doctoral work in a seminar titled “Optimising the involvement of private practitioners in Tuberculosis care and control in India.”
A brief description of her work is provided below:
Majority of Tuberculosis (TB) patients in India seek care from Private Practitioners (PPs) whose practices are sub-optimal leading to medical complications. Government of India is involving PPs in the National TB Programme (NTP) through PPM (Public Private Mix) schemes to provide correct and timely TB treatment to patients. But, the uptake of PPM schemes by PPs is poor. Hence to understand ‘how’ partnerships with PPs work (or do not), we designed a model to improve PPP’s involvement in the referral of TB cases to NTP. PPs were allocated to the intervention or control group. Intervention PPs referred 548 cases during the intervention period of 12 months, as compared to 169 from the control group. We demonstrated the effectiveness of a system-oriented intervention to involve PPs in NTP in field settings. Our study conducted in routine programmatic settings provides important information about the systemic impediments that affect engaging PPs in public health programmes.
You are invited to attend the seminar in person or join the live seminar via Zoom using the link provided at the top of the page.
Faculty and Wellcome Trust/DBT India Alliance Intermediate Fellow, Institute of Public Health, Bengaluru
Pragati Hebbar
Faculty and Wellcome Trust/DBT India Alliance Early Career Fellow, Institute of Public Health, Bengaluru
Are you thinking of using realist evaluation (RE) in your work? You have heard of realist evaluation but are unsure if it will work for you in your research or evaluation project? Or are you generally curious about health policy and programme evaluation and would like to learn about realist evaluation?
Then this 3 day workshop on realist evaluation is the most appropriate starting point for you to understand this approach. Through this hands-on workshop the concepts of theory-driven inquiry and particularly realist evaluation will be explained. The workshop will help participants understand and design a study based on realist evaluation using practical examples. Realist evaluation is an essential evaluation method that is idea to study programmes and policies in health. The starting point of a realist evaluation is the fact that programmes and policies work for some and not for others and hence the technique allows to explain how and why programmes and policies work, especially in complex health system settings.
If you are working or considering to work in these areas of health policy and systems research and would like to equip yourself with this approach join us from 9 – 11 October in Bengaluru for an immersive learning experience.
On August 30th 2019 IPH celebrated its annual day marking the completion of 14 years in the field of public health. The day began with presentations from the four research clusters sharing of learning and reflections by teams. It was an opportunity for new staff, interns and Fulbright fellows to be acquainted with the range of research, education and public and policy engagement activities at IPH, and an opportunity for all present to take stock of the progress made by IPH this year. The education team took IPH down memory lane with lively anecdotes and stories from how the eLearning team started with 1 – 2 people and has now grown to cater to national and international audiences. Dr. Sarin and Dr. Prashanth NS designed and facilitated a public health quiz, encouraging participants to rack their brain cells and use their crystallised and fluid intelligence to answer riddles and questions about pioneers in the field of public health and key events and decisions that have shaped the field of public health.
Public health enthusiasts, former colleagues and well-wishers joined us for the public event – “IPH Annual Day oration series” organized in the evening. The event started off with a short message from Dr. Devadasan, Founder of IPH, to welcome everyone and reflect on the growth and progress of IPH. His address was followed by a testimonial video of partners, collaborators and well-wishers of IPH instilling inspiration in the staff and appreciating the partnership with IPH.
The speaker for the IPH Annual Day oration series was Dr. Ravi Narayan, with a lecture titled “Can floor moppers become tap turners off? – reflections on a new Public Health Paradigm!’ Dr. Ravi Narayan has been a long-term mentor for individuals at IPH and an inspiration for all those in the field of public health. Over a one-hour lecture, Dr. Narayan elegantly took the audience through his personal journey into the field of health and described how the field has changed over the years. He brought attention to a few grassroots public health movements and initiatives in India that were radical and path breaking. Dr. Narayan encouraged the audience to move beyond thinking solely about primary health care and think carefully about resource limitations, work with local knowledge and think creatively at problem solving. He reminded the audience that the determinants of health are vast: physical, social, mental, economic, political; and thus it is important for doctors and public health professionals to change their focus and consider ways to turn the tap off.
The day ended with a music performance by an extremely talented young artist, Samarth R. Samarth is a young Carnatic singer and his strong voice echoed through the auditorium, briefly making the audience forget the time. The director of IPH, Dr. Upendra Bhojani closed the annual day with a vote of thanks, thanking everyone for their enthusiastic participation and making the time to be part of our celebration. The day ended with refreshments, chatter and renewed energy to carry forward until the next annual day.
IPH Faculty and Wellcome Trust DBT India Alliance research fellows Upendra Bhojani and Pragati Hebbar attended the 9th Annual Fellows’ Meet in Bengaluru from June 13 – 15th 2019. The annual fellows meet serves as a platform to bring together India Alliance Fellows and other grant recipients from prestigious research institutes together to foster collaboration, support and exchange of ideas across a wide range of research areas.
Both Pragati and Upendra presented their work during the first year of their fellowships through scientific poster sessions. Upendra Bhojani was invited to present his work and research supported by India Alliance during this meet. Upendra gave a talk titled “Commercial Determinants of health: the political economy of tobacco in India”, available for viewinghere.
Given the present focus on and the growing concern of
the role of corporations in promoting products and choices that are mass produced
and are in general detrimental to health, Upendra’s talk was relevant and well-received.
At the Fellows meet, new committee members were introduced. Wellcome Trust and DBT India Alliance also launched new grant opportunities such as the Team Science Grants and grants to establish virtual Clinical/Public Health Research Centres, in order to provide a platform for collaborating and strengthening important research initiatives in India.